Mayor Resonds to FDNY Female EMS Captains` Lawsuit

Mayor Bloomberg defended the Fire Department yesterday, saying a suit by five female captains claiming sex discrimination doesn't seem to have "any basis" and that the FDNY's promotions are based only on competence.

"I believe when I looked at the numbers, there are 15 staff chiefs out in the field - seven of them are women," Bloomberg told reporters in Harrisburg, Pa., where he was pushing his gun-law initiative. "So, just on the face of it, it didn't look to me like there was any basis for a discrimination suit."

The five captains, all of them long-serving workers on the Emergency Medical Services side of the department, claim they were repeatedly thwarted from rising to higher ranks, while less-qualified men got promotions.

"The only basis [the FDNY uses] for promotion is who is the most competent," Bloomberg said.

But lawyer Yetta Kurland, who filed the suit, charged it was "clear that women [in the FDNY] are not treated as equals."